Researchers: Dina Van Dijk¹, Orly Grinstein¹, Rinat Avraham¹, Orli Kerub²

Background: Telenursing enables communication with patients and monitoring of their condition by digital means through telephone calls, recorded or written messages, and video calls. Public health, as a non-acute field, is among the first to have its services impacted during emergencies, making it essential to strengthen the use of telenursing in this domain. The study focused on public health nurses at Tipot-Halav clinics in South, North, and Center districts.

Objectives: To examine the scope of use of telenursing in public health services and to identify facilitating and inhibiting factors.

Method: A mixed-methods study. The qualitative part included 19 in-depth interviews with public health nurses in field and management roles. The quantitative part included an online survey distributed to 279 nurses in the three districts.

Findings: The interviews revealed enabling factors, such as expanding accessibility and enriching parents' knowledge, alongside inhibiting factors, such as a lack of personal contact in face-to-face meetings. The nurses suggested that remote nursing is mainly suitable for monitoring and guiding parents but is not a substitute for clinic visits.
The quantitative study showed difficulty in using remote nursing in Tipot-Halav clinics, with a lack of infrastructure identified as a major inhibiting factor. Additional barriers included a lack of training, workload, and a preference for face-to-face meetings. Predictors of use included digital literacy, positive attitudes, self-efficacy, and social norms. Multivariate analysis highlighted the relationship between attitudes, self-efficacy, and intentions to use remote nursing.

Conclusions: The use of remote nursing among public health nurses is insufficient, and there is a need to promote its use, especially in the current security context.

Recommendations: We recommend improving technological infrastructure, providing professional training for nurses, promoting attitude changes, ensuring systemic and managerial support, and adapting services to populations with low digital literacy. Implementing these recommendations could improve the accessibility, satisfaction, and efficiency of remote nursing services while reducing gaps between districts.

Research end date: 12/2024